Sunday was supposed to be just another travel day at Pearson Airport. Instead, thousands of passengers found themselves stuck in endless lines, some trapped on planes for hours, all because a system that’s supposed to make things faster went offline completely.
If you’ve flown internationally, you know those self-serve kiosks at customs. The ones where you scan your passport, answer a few questions on the screen, and get through relatively quickly? Yeah, they all stopped working. And not just at Pearson Airport, but at major airports across Canada.
What Actually Happened
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) ran into what they’re calling “an unforeseen technical issue during routine systems maintenance.”
The outage started Sunday afternoon and hit primary inspection kiosks at multiple Canadian international airports. Pearson Airport, along with Montreal’s Trudeau International and Calgary International, immediately started warning passengers on social media that wait times were about to get really, really long.
The timing couldn’t have been worse. Sunday evening is one of the busiest travel times of the week, with people returning from weekend trips and business travelers heading out for Monday meetings. Instead of smoothly sailing through customs, they got to stand in lines that stretched through entire terminals.
Stuck on the Ground
Here’s where it gets even more frustrating. Some passengers didn’t just wait in the terminal. They were stuck on their planes, sitting on the tarmac, unable to deplane because the customs system couldn’t process them.
Some passengers didn’t just wait in the terminal. They were stuck on their planes after landing, sitting on the tarmac for hours, unable to deplane because the customs system couldn’t process them. Your flight lands on time, and then nothing happens. You just wait while the technical issues get sorted out.
One traveler, Eric Tordjman, had a particularly rough day trying to get home to Toronto from Calgary. He missed two flights on Sunday while attempting to return home, initially had a boarding pass that was “revoked” after changing to an earlier flight, and couldn’t get a boarding pass for his new flight due to the kiosk outage. “Everyone’s just telling us just to be patient,” he said, which is probably not what anyone wants to hear when they’re missing multiple flights through no fault of their own.
The worst part? If he’d missed his eventual flight Sunday night, he would’ve needed to sleep overnight in the airport or pay out of his own pocket for a hotel. That’s making a bad situation even worse.
How Pearson Airport and Others Responded
When the kiosks went down, airports didn’t have many options. Travelers were redirected to primary inspection lines for manual processing, which means border services officers had to check everyone’s documents the old-fashioned way. One by one. By hand.
Think about how long it takes to check one person’s passport, ask them questions, verify their information, and process their declaration form. Now multiply that by hundreds or thousands of people all trying to get through at the same time. That’s why the lines got so crazy so fast.
Pearson Airport and the CBSA tried to speed things up as much as possible, bringing in extra staff and organizing the chaos. But there’s only so much you can do when your main system is completely offline. It’s like trying to check out at a grocery store when all the scanners are broken and someone has to manually type in every single item.
Vancouver International Airport also dealt with the same outage, though they said aside from customs clearance taking “slightly longer than normal,” they didn’t see major operational impacts. Lucky them.
This Isn’t Even the First Time
Here’s what makes this situation even more annoying: this isn’t the first time a Canada-wide kiosk outage has impacted travelers, with outages also occurring in April and June of this year.
Three major outages in less than six months. That’s a pattern, not a coincidence.
Each time it happens, thousands of people get stuck. Flights get delayed. Travel plans fall apart. And everyone’s left wondering why a system this important keeps failing. Routine maintenance turned into a massive technical failure affecting airports nationwide
The technology at Pearson Airport and other Canadian airports is supposed to make international travel smoother and faster. The kiosks were introduced to speed up processing times and reduce bottlenecks at customs. When they work, they’re great. When they don’t, everything backs up worse than if they’d never existed in the first place.
What Travelers Are Saying
Social media lit up Sunday evening with frustrated passengers posting photos and videos from Pearson Airport and other affected locations. The images showed exactly what you’d expect: massive crowds, lines snaking through terminals, and lots of tired, annoyed people checking their watches.
Some passengers were understanding, recognizing that technical problems happen and airport staff were doing their best. Others were less sympathetic, pointing out that if any other business had their main system crash three times in six months, heads would roll.
The CBSA issued a statement thanking travelers for their cooperation and apologizing for the inconvenience. But when you’ve missed your connecting flight or you’re facing an unexpected hotel bill, “sorry for the inconvenience” doesn’t really cut it.
The Bigger Picture
This outage at Pearson Airport and across Canada highlights a bigger issue with how much we rely on technology for critical infrastructure. The kiosks were meant to solve a problem, making border processing faster and more efficient. But what happens when the solution becomes the problem?
Manual processing might be slower, but at least it doesn’t crash. There’s something to be said for having backup systems that don’t depend on everything working perfectly all the time.
Airports are already stressful enough without adding technology failures into the mix. You’re dealing with security screenings, flight delays, lost luggage, overpriced food, and uncomfortable seating. The last thing anyone needs is to add “waiting for hours because computers stopped working” to that list.
What Comes Next
As of Sunday night, the CBSA was working to restore the system as quickly as possible. But that didn’t help the thousands of people who’d already had their travel plans disrupted.
Tordjman warned that if the problems continue through Monday morning, he expects airport chaos. Monday mornings are typically busy at Pearson Airport anyway, with business travelers and people heading out for the week. If the kiosks are still down, it’s going to be a nightmare.
The question everyone’s asking now: what’s being done to prevent this from happening again? Three outages in six months suggests the problem isn’t just bad luck or random technical glitches. There’s something fundamentally wrong with the system, and it needs to be fixed properly.
Lessons for Travelers
If there’s anything to learn from this mess, it’s that buffer time matters. That tight connection at Pearson Airport? Maybe give yourself an extra hour. That Sunday evening arrival time that gets you home just in time for bed? Consider flying earlier in the day if you can.
Nobody wants to spend extra time at airports. But spending an extra hour by choice beats spending three unexpected hours standing in a customs line because technology failed.
Also, if you’re traveling internationally through Pearson Airport or any major Canadian airport, maybe keep an eye on social media before you head out. If there’s another outage, you’ll probably hear about it there first. At least then you can mentally prepare yourself for what you’re walking into.
The Bottom Line
The Pearson Airport kiosk outage on Sunday was frustrating, inconvenient, and unfortunately not even surprising anymore. When critical systems fail repeatedly, it stops being a technical glitch and starts being a serious problem that needs serious solutions.
Travelers expect delays sometimes. Weather happens. Mechanical issues occur. But when the same system crashes three times in six months, that’s on the people running it, not on bad luck.
For now, thousands of travelers have a story about the day they got stuck at Pearson Airport because computers decided to take a break. Some made their flights eventually. Others didn’t. All of them probably have opinions about how reliable our airport technology really is.
The CBSA says they’re working to fix it. Travelers are hoping they actually do this time. Because if this happens again, “sorry for the inconvenience” isn’t going to cut it anymore.
